How do we rationalise things we intuitively know are wrong?

Over the past weekend, news of the Australian ‘ball-tampering’ scandal has rocked the cricketing world, and has dominated headlines around the world as a result.

In short, the Australian national team, led by captain Steve Smith, essentially attempted to change the condition of the ball – and thus gain an unfair advantage over their South African counterparts. It has been brandished as cheating by the experts and fans around the world and has cast huge doubt over where their team goes next.

After first hearing of the news, and I won’t deny it gave me a lot of glee; they are, after all, the perennial English villains in cricket, the actual scandal got me thinking. How are we, as people, able to rationalise something that we see fit, even if it goes against popular belief?

It can only be said that each individual action we take has distinct ramifications on our daily lives, and it seems to transpire into overall beliefs too. It would be unthinkable for any of us to suggest that we don’t have any irrational thoughts or contradict the common values of society.

Let me give you some examples, some more general, others specific instances.

The Australian cricket team is the first I want to touch on. Not for the fact that they have been caught cheating, but for the fact that in the previous few years they have gone around being playground bullies – sledging (basically verbally goading the opposition), and just being arrogant in general. Yet the day before they were exposed for the ball-tampering, their coach Darren Lehmann lodged a formal complaint to the sport’s governing body complaining about the South Africans getting too personal, claiming they had ‘crossed a line’.

Both the cheating and general nature combine when you are talking about rationality. The Australians aren’t stupid – they must have thought all their claims were rational and just, yet to the neutral eye, they weren’t.

In a more general sense, this can be applied to Western reaction to terrorism. Unsurprisingly, there is all this outrage when we are suspect to a vicious terrorist attack, but was the solution more violence after 9/11 and is it still the answer today? Probably not. Yet we rationalise it, choosing to ignore the fact that many civilians do get killed by Western forces in the Middle East and excusing our actions as a reaction to attacks on our society.

These examples are similar to the viewpoint of individual murderers, paedophiles, racists, sexists et al. It is unthinkable that, even if they have the desire to do these vile actions, that they can bring themselves to proceed with the knowledge of such devastating consequences. In those instances, it is once again clear that irrationality trumps all willpower.

I wonder what makes people believe stuff like this is right, it baffles me as to how our mind can lose focus of the measured approach that it takes through every day life.

That is not simply due to the fact that I just don’t agree with any of the aforementioned, people have their different views – that is what makes society what it is.

It is interesting to note how opinions change in the face of extreme emotion. The desire to kill a murderer may feel is an example of this, the attraction to children a paedophile might feel is another. It all stems down to this emotion – we let that get in the way of logical decision making.       

To me, it simply shows the incredible power of the mind, that we are able to make rational decisions nigh-on every minute. Yet there will still be moments where emotion will make decision-making too much. 

But that is ok, it should not be criticised. For emotion is what makes us all human beings. If we were rational in everything we did and said, we’d essentially be faultless robots. We can never see things from an objective point of view, we are naturally always concerned about how they will affect us and those around us.

Even now, although the Australian ball-tampering scandal brings shame upon cricket, a sport I follow so closely, I still feel immense joy at the Australian demise. I wonder if I can rationalise that.